Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality - Softcover

Sullivan, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679746145 ISBN 13: 9780679746140

Publisher: Vintage, 1996

Synopsis

no subject has divided contemporary America more bitterly than homosexuality.  Addressing the full range of the debate in this pathbreaking book, Andrew Sullivan, the former editor of The New Republic, restores both reason and humanity to the discussion over how a predominantly heterosexual society should deal with its homosexual citizens.

Sympathetically yet relentlessly, Sullivan assesses the prevailing public positions on homosexuality--from prohibitionist to liberationist and from conservative to liberal.  In their place, he calls for a politics of homosexuality that would guarantee the rights of gays and lesbians without imposing tolerance.  At once deeply personal and impeccably reasoned, written with elegance and wit, Virtually Normal will challenge readers of every persuasion; no book is more likely to transform out sexual politics in the coming decades.

About this title

Review:

In a dizzyingly short period of time, homosexuality has gone from being the love that dare not speak its name to the one that shouts it. Refreshingly, in this wide-ranging discussion of the moral and political status of homosexuals, Sullivan, the gay former whizbang New Republic editor, prefers the middle register. On the one hand, he shuns the liberal tendency to give gays victim status but, on the other, advocates the legalization of gay marriage because he views it as the public recognition of a gay's basic human right to fully love another member of his/her group -- a right that, Sullivan notes, even bigots generally grant those they hate.

From the Back Cover:

"Virtually Normal is a brilliant and revolutionary book that will transform gay studies." --Camille Paglia, Washington Post Book World

"Groundbreaking. . . . Virtually Normal arrives at an opportune historical moment. . . . One opes that Sullivan's book will be widely read." --Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Sets a standard for depth and subtlety of argument. . . . Everyone concerned will want to read what he has to say." --Wall Street Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0679746145
• ISBN 13: 9780679746140
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240